


what the water gave me

by allthelight



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Gen, Light Angst, Pre-Canon, non-graphic childbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22374826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthelight/pseuds/allthelight
Summary: "...she takes a look at its face and almost recoils when she realises that she’s staring right into Asriel’s."The baby is born in a bathtub. Marisa and Lyra in those first few moments.
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter, Lyra Belacqua & Marisa Coulter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 87





	what the water gave me

**Author's Note:**

> -This was based off a tumblr post I saw (I forget by who but a big big shoutout to you!) that theorised that because of That scene where Marisa's just kind of looking into the bath after bathing Lyra that Lyra was actually born in the bath. My eyes saw it and my muse ran with it. 
> 
> -This is obviously more TV Marisa than book Marisa for that reason but I don't think it strays too far from what I've read. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me. 
> 
> -Title from 'What The Water Gave Me' by Florence + The Machine
> 
> -Any comments/feedback would be greatly appreciated but I know you're all busy people so don't feel obligated. I just hope you enjoy :)

The baby is born in a bathtub.

Marisa squeezes the sides of it until her fingers turn white to match the porcelain, her whole face contorting with the effort of _not_ screaming as it feels like she’s being ripped apart from the inside out. Her whole body is tense, poised to snap, and while contractions come and go, the tension never seems to ease up. The thundering of her heart is loud in her ears and she almost cannot hear the voice of the unbearable nurse as she instructs Marisa to _breathe._

Her daemon chatters nervously from the window ledge and if she could speak she would tell him to shut up, that he is not helping. He tried once, earlier, to hold her hand in the beginnings of labour when she was still in the bed but she had slapped him away. It was a reflex, nothing more – she hadn’t _meant_ it – but he had given her those wounded eyes and he hasn’t tried again since. She can’t bring herself to care. There are more important things to worry about now.

“You’re doing very well,” the nurse coos, and Marisa wonders if slapping her would get rid of the sickly tone. “You’re doing excellently, Mrs Coulter.”

Her wedding ring cuts into her finger, bruising and making her bleed. She wonders if it will actually fuse to her skin, that’s how hard she grips the sides of the tub. That, when this is all over, there will be no way to extricate herself from it, no way to separate the metal and flesh. She should have removed it earlier, but it didn’t bother her before. Now, it hurts but the pain and pressure that seems to be everywhere all at once hurts much more.

It feels like she deserves the pain, in a way. Her penance for committing the sins she did with who she did. He knows, of course. She’s sent word using their complicated system and she knows fine well he’s not off on his travels. There’s a microscopic, traitorous part of her that wishes he were here. Why she wishes it, she doesn’t know. He’s not gentle, but then again neither is she.

A contraction grips her fiercely and the water sloshes up the sides as her feet kick out suddenly, hitting the foot of the bath with a violent _thump._ The nurse barely bats an eye and continues her nauseating praises.

“It _hurts_ ,” Marisa grinds out. “Make it s _top._ ”

“I’m afraid you’re progressing too quickly, Mrs Coulter.” The nurse nods to another who leaves the room. “Giving you anything now could be dangerous.”

Marisa scoffs. She isn’t afraid of any danger, in fact she used to thrive on it. It’s what got her into this whole bloody mess in the first place. The danger of it, the utter thrill of lying next to her husband at night when she’d lain next to Asriel only hours before, wondering if he suspected a thing. This whole pregnancy has been nothing but dangerous and she’s still come through it, hasn’t she? She is not someone who is easily afraid.

It was an annoyance at first. A baby was inconvenient, and she didn’t have the time nor the inclination to be a mother. She wanted to travel, to see more of the world and unlock all of its secrets. She wanted to know Dust, to know what exactly it did and how it worked. She wanted to find the answers and throw them in the faces of those who patted her on the arm and smiled patronisingly and deferred to her husband as if the most interesting thing about her was the fact she had married Edward Coulter.

These are desires that will never leave her, but in this moment they are secondary. Right now she wants this creature out of her, wants to be separate from this source of her shame. Everytime she looks at the child she will be served a reminder of the time she allowed emotions to overcome reason and stupidly allowed Asriel Belacqua into her heart, a place where no other has even tried to venture before.

She thought she loved him, and a part of her still thinks that. A part of her thinks she hates him. A part that only grows and grows as the contractions wrap around her and tighten viscously until she cannot breathe. She cannot help it - she screams.

“Now, Mrs. Coulter-”

“Oh do s _hut up_ ,” she seethes, barely registering the other equally as vapid nurse coming into the room once again. “Get this baby out of me and do it now.”

The nurse moves to the bottom of the bath tub at what feels like a glacial pace and it’s an age before she hums and declares that now it’s time.

 _I’ll have you dismissed for your attitude_ Marisa thinks, fantasies of revenge at the snooty tone taking the edge off the contractions as her body seemingly does what it must, knowing what to do even if she doesn’t. There’s an overwhelming pressure, unbearable really, and her monkey jumps up and down on the window ledge, writhing around, just a golden blur. She wonders if he feels it, what she’s going through to push this bastard child into the world.

Then all of a sudden it’s gone, that pressure, and there’s a splash as the nurse reaches into the water and plucks out a baby. Marisa closes her eyes and leans back, catching her breath. The monkey comes closer, she can feel him, and when she opens her eyes he is there, gazing at the creature with such a look of wonder in his eyes.

The baby is in her arms before she realises. She doesn’t know how to hold a baby and it feels awkward, unnatural. Blinking to clear away tears she didn’t realise she had, she takes a look at its face and almost recoils when she realises that she’s staring right into Asriel’s.

It’s the shape of his nose, the curve of his chin and when the baby opens its eyes it’s like staring into the eyes that once upon a time she met across a crowded ballroom. Eyes that, for better or worse, have always seen her.

“Here’s your daughter, Mrs. Coulter.”

The name which she has had for years, which she has used liberally to secure what she wants, suddenly feels like an icy slap across her face.

“Get out,” she whispers.

“But, ma’am, we cannot possibly-”

“ _Get out!”_

The monkey hisses at their daemons, teeth bared, and eventually everyone is gone and the only sound is the water lapping quietly around them.

“You’ll have to go,” Marisa murmurs, hardly able to look but unable to tear her eyes away from this physical embodiment of her shame, from those eyes that threaten to undermine everything she’s ever done to climb the ladder that so few women get to climb. This baby is so very clearly Asriel’s, looking already like her father in the five minutes she’s been in this world, and anybody would have to be stupid not to see it.

Her husband knows Asriel Belacqua, has talked about securing his favour many times. He wishes he were half the man Asriel is, instead of a dull politician who can only dream of the lands Asriel has walked on. Edward admires him, and he may be dull but he is not stupid. This baby with her father’s face will ruin them all.

The monkey reaches out to touch and she lets him, too tired to do otherwise. There’s a look of loss on his face that she can’t stand anymore than she can stand this baby in her arms.

“She has to go,” she says with more conviction. “She cannot stay. I’ll send word to Asriel tonight. He can have her.”

It’s for the best, she decides, plans coming together in her head. This is what has to be done. This baby must never have existed. The nurses she can deal with – intimidation is the first idea into her head but bribes could work equally as well. The evidence will be burned. She will be the picture of grief for a few months, perfect tears and perfect despair and people will think she is mourning the baby but secretly she will be weeping with relief.

Edward is a dull man but he has a temper. Not Asriel’s tempers of a man who hungers for the secrets of the world. No, they are the tempers of a man who knows he has power, a man who likes to remind others of it, too. He’s destructive to a spiteful degree, and when emotion overtakes him he’s apt to do whatever he feels is right, without any real thought as to what he’ll do afterwards.

He’ll kill the baby, kill Asriel and kill her as well if he ever finds out. She cannot let that happen.

The baby looks up at Marisa, her eyes seemingly searching for something, and when she doesn’t find it she screws up her face and begins to cry loudly, fists flailing, and it’s only now that Marisa realises that she hadn’t made a sound up until this point.

What does this baby have to cry about? Asriel will protect her and she will grow up perfectly well. It will not concern her, will likely not concern her father either. No, it will be Marisa who will be left to pick up the pieces, will be left to ensure that there is nothing that could lead Edward to them both.

She closes her eyes, only for a second, and when she opens them again, she sees what she may have missed before, so intently was she looking into the baby’s face: her daemon. A small bird, a chick, with an open mouth smacking hungrily. Marisa turns her head away. To look into her soul… it would be too much.

The nurses come back in at the sound of the child’s cries and they coo and fuss and take her out of Marisa’s arms which seems to suit them both just fine. They swaddle her up and take her away. After everything that must come next another nurse cleans her up and helps her out of the bath and into bed. She is freshly washed and dried and smelling of roses once again. Her and the monkey are alone; it’s just the two of them for the first time in a long time.

She is sore and she wants to sleep but the baby is crying from the other room, loud hungry cries that Marisa cannot do anything about. _You don’t want me_ she thinks a _nd I don’t want you. We would not be good for each other._

The monkey comes over and tries to take her hand but she slaps it away, this time meaning it with everything she has.

-x-

Asriel takes the baby just as she knew he would. When she sees him next it’s almost a week later and she is all dressed in black. Asriel’s mouth is in a tight line and Stelmaria is at his side, looking equally as grim, but Marisa notices the soft glances that she directs the monkey, who seems to long to go to her but dares not.

“The baby?” She asks.

Something in Asriel’s eyes flashes. “She’s fine.”

They are further apart than they are used to but needs must. “Her name?”

“Lyra.”

“Her daemon?”

Asriel’s eyes shift to the golden monkey briefly. Stelmaria looks vaguely guilty. “Pantalaimon.”

She nods. Already the details of the child’s face are growing fuzzy in her mind and soon she won’t remember them at all.

“I must be going,” she tells Asriel, even though she only just arrived. “We don’t want Edward finding out where I am.”

“Then off you go to him,” Asriel drawls, with a bitter smile on his face and maybe, just maybe, the barest hint of longing.

**Twelve and a bit years later...**

It began with a hug.

As a rule, Marisa Coulter simply does not hug. It’s not her nature and it never has been and usually people who fall for her pretty laugh and disarming smile are thinking of doing something much more _physical._ But no, Lyra simply goes for it and takes her breath away again for the second time since she was born.

There’s an itch, something deep down inside that she can’t quite scratch, and she manages to ignore it until Lyra sits in the bathtub and Marisa’s fingers are tangled in the soapy depths of her hair.

This is the closest she has been to the child since she was born and the effects are disconcerting to say the least. It’s not as though she has hardly thought of the child over the years, but she has hardly thought of her as _real._ Lyra was an abstract concept, something she and Asriel have used to hurt each other the handful of times they have seen each other. There was an untouchable quality about her, partly due to the fact that Asriel wouldn’t let her anywhere near Lyra, but also because Marisa didn’t deign to find out more. The child was gone and she had her own life to get on with and rebuild. Lyra had felt simply unreal.

But not now… no, not now. Not when Marisa can feel the bones of her daughter’s skull beneath her fingertips, can hear her laugh and chatter away, has felt those skinny little arms around her neck. Lyra is her own, someone _she_ made and Marisa’s mind runs wild with the possibilities. This small child with the wild eyes and penchant for the skies is all hers. For once Asriel is not here, the last vestiges of his control have slipped away and now Marisa has the reigns once again and she feels delightfully drunk off it all.

It’s only when Lyra is out of the bath, wrapped in a towel in the other room that Marisa falters. Looking into the soapy water and seeing not this bath but another one, in another house, where the water was red and the pain was unbearable and she just wanted it all to stop.

The anger she had felt then comes in waves. The pain she had felt because she had nurtured this baby for months, had felt her hiccups while she slept, and then she had come into this world with the audacity to look exactly like the man who had done exactly nothing for her.

And then it’s the memory of the despair, of lying in her bed and looking out of the window to see the balcony that she walked around so much, one foot daintily in front of the other, and wondering what it would be like if she simply fell off, wondering if indeed that would be better than living with the shame of it all.

She has spent so long climbing her way back up to where she once sat so comfortably. Life was never going to simple or easy for a woman with her ambition but it certainly wasn’t meant to be this cruel. No matter. She has turned their cruelty into strength and she will bring them to their knees, those who dared to doubt her, who robbed her of everything she once had.

This bathtub full of water, full of regrets that are not so easily washed off and staring into it makes her dangerously forget who she is and what she wants to achieve, so lost she is in the past. But she has risen, hasn’t she? She has clawed her way back and now look at her, look at what she has made for herself. She did this, and on her own. Not Edward, not Asriel, no, it was all Marisa and now she has Lyra, part of her, and she will make her, too. She will do it all.

The bathtub sits here, full of the past, but she is not the woman she once was and she will not let anything hold her back. She will not drown in it. She reaches in and pulls the plug, and by the time the water begins to swirl down the drain she has already walked away.


End file.
